I was looking over my graduation photos recently, and am appalled at how terrible I look in all of them. My face expresses the following: "I went through four years of purgatory, and all I got was this lousy matching smock/cap/strangulation hood?!"

On the other hand, I'm really starting to feel sorry for all I put my professors through. The paper triangle flicking. The passing of notes. The crawling under the table and napping. The showing up hung over. The showing up buzzed. The muffled giggling in the corner. The misuse of magnesium and other lab supplies (it burns so pretty!). The sleeping. The kicking of classmates. The throwing of objects at classmates. The reading the assignment in class, and then picking a fight with the tutor. The hiding behind larger classmates to avoid being called on. The shouting matches with classmates. The bringing a windup toy to class. The bringing a live scorpion to class. The general perturbation of Mr. L. The goading of Mr. N. The doodling of insubordinate sentiments on notebook margins. The fact that attending a semester-long math class on Descartes alleviated my ignorance of the locus problem not one whit, tiddle, or jot. The notebooks filled with everything in the universe except notes.

Qua high school teacher, I'm seeing suchlike activities from a very different perspective. Can we all say "irony"?